Shimmy with my Granny

In this family collection of twenty-nine, largely contemporary poems, topics such as babies, family relationships, dressing up, bedtime, death, divorce and adoption are featured. Sarah Garland’s illustrations are synonymous with family life and in her picture books it is the interplay between the relatively few words and the expansiveness of her watercolour images which engages. Here however, I feel that she has tried to cram too much between the covers so that often there is insufficient room for words and illustrations to work in harmony. For instance Robert Herrick’s ‘Dreams’ is almost squeezed off the page by two humorous nocturnal poems and a jolting clash of mood. Much more satisfying are her own ‘Nan’ where synergy exists between visual and verbal images, and ‘Baby’s Drinking Song’ and Berlie Doherty’s ‘Dad’ both of which have breathing space on the page.